North Korea Threatens To Snip Ties With South

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: November 25, 2008

In a reversal of recent progress toward reconciliation on the divided Korean Peninsula, North Korea said Monday it would ban South Korean tourists from the ancient city of Kaesong and ''selectively expel'' South Koreans working in a joint industrial complex there starting Dec. 1.

The North also said it planned to shut down the only crossborder train service with South Korea, idling the freight train that makes a daily round trip between Kaesong and Seoul, the South's capital 45 miles to the south.

If North Korea carries out its expulsion threats, operations will be seriously disrupted at the Kaesong Industrial Park, a showpiece project of economic cooperation between the capitalist South and the Communist North.

North Korea issued the threats even as it agreed to hold six-nation talks next month with South Korea and other regional powers seeking to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.

The next round of nuclear disarmament talks are to be held in Beijing on Dec. 8. The talks have stumbled because of disagreement between American and North Korean officials over how to verify the North's nuclear declaration and its nuclear dismantlement.

North Korea is refusing to allow nuclear samples to be taken out of the country for testing. The North will stick to that stance, analysts say, in hopes of using it as leverage in negotiating with the administration of the president-elect, Barack Obama.

Relations between the two Koreas have soured since February, when Lee Myung-bak, a conservative, became South Korea's president. Mr. Lee has expressed skepticism about the billions of dollars in investment promised to North Korea by his two liberal predecessors and has irritated impoverished North Korea by refusing to ship food aid unless its government asked for it.

North Korea warned Monday that the actions it was announcing were only a ''first stage.'' Analysts and officials in Seoul feared that North Korea would attempt to extract concessions from Mr. Lee by gradually strangling the operations at Kaesong.

Mr. Lee has called for dialogue with the North but has made it clear that he will not succumb to pressure tactics. On Monday, his government called the North's latest threats ''seriously regrettable.''